Since the early Seventies Cathy Gayner has split her time between her house in London and Le Rouzet, the rundown farmhouse in southwest France that her husband, Richard, has slowly rebuilt by hand. Over the years she has established an enviable reputation for her cooking, catering for up to 30 guests at a time, all gathered around the long wooden table in the shade of a walnut tree. So when she wanted to raise money for her charity, Age Unlimited, which supports young and old through hard times, a cook book was the obvious answer. Recipes from Le Rouzet has drawn praise from Rick Stein and Alain Roux for its simple yet delicious dishes.
1. Marinated figs with camembert salad
Serves 4
This salad is especially good when the walnuts on our trees at our farmhouse in France, Le Rouzet, are just ripe, but it is still excellent if you use ordinary dry walnuts, as long as you toast them first. Rub off the skins between your hands when they have cooled. For the marinade, use any cheap balsamic vinegar.
200ml balsamic vinegar
100g caster sugar
2 garlic cloves
6 thyme sprigs
6 ripe figs, halved
Bag of watercress or rocket
150g ripe camembert or similar soft cheese, the runnier the better
Salt and pepper
4 tbsp walnut oil
75g walnuts
1 Put the vinegar, sugar, garlic and thyme in a pan and boil to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and pour the marinade over the figs. Leave for a couple of hours.
2 Heat a frying pan, drain the figs and sear them, cut side down, until they caramelise. You may have to add a small amount of the marinade to stop them sticking.
3 Arrange the watercress, figs and cheese on plates, season and drizzle with the walnut oil. Scatter the nuts on top.
2. Asparagus salad
Serves 4
When asparagus begins to get cheaper and you want an alternative to serving it with butter, try this recipe.
Large handful of parsley
Small handful of mint
Small handful of basil
2 tsp capers
2 tsp Dijon mustard
100ml olive oil
Salt and pepper
450g asparagus, cooked until just tender
6 rashers streaky bacon, cut into lardons and fried until crisp
Parmesan shavings or wafers (optional)
With sauce verte and bacon
Put all the herbs, the capers and mustard into a food processor and grind to a paste. Add the olive oil slowly until you get the consistency you want. Season the sauce well. To serve, put the asparagus onto a large plate and scatter over the crispy bacon and the parmesan shavings or wafers (recipe below). Serve the sauce separately.
Easy parmesan wafers
It’s incredibly quick and easy to make these wafers and they look professional. Grate some parmesan coarsely – 1 tbsp makes 1 wafer – and arrange in circles, about 8cm in diameter, on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Cook for 5-8 minutes at 200C/Gas 6, taking them out as soon as they are golden. Leave the wafers for a minute or so before easing them off the baking parchment – you are releasing them rather than moving them. Don’t pile them up on a plate, as they will stick to one another.
3. Cauliflower salad
Serves 6 as part of a selection of salads
If you are going to make this in advance, keep the breadcrumb mixture apart from the cauliflower. Warm it through before serving.
1 medium cauliflower
6 tbsp olive oil
110g fresh fine breadcrumbs
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
6 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
1½ tbsp capers
12 black olives, stoned and chopped
Salt and pepper
1 Break the cauliflower into florets and cook in boiling water for 5 minutes. You want the cauliflower al dente. Drain. Heat the oil in a pan, add the breadcrumbs and cook for about 5 minutes until they are beginning to turn crispy. Then add the garlic and cook for a moment or two, taking care that the breadcrumbs don’t burn.
2 Add the cauliflower and all the other ingredients to the pan, season and stir to warm through.
4. Radicchio salad
Serves 4
I love this salad. It’s a strong, hearty dish, more Italian than French.
2 heads radicchio
Olive oil for drizzling, plus 4 tbsp
Plenty of salt and pepper
2 large garlic cloves
2 x 400g tins haricot beans, drained and rinsed
White wine vinegar
4 tbsp finely chopped parsley
2 tsp capers
200g black olives, pitted (don’t use ones already pitted as they seldom taste as good as they should) and roughly chopped
100g parmesan, shaved
1 Cut each radicchio into 8, trying to keep each bit attached to the core. Cook on a griddle pan until lightly charred on each side and transfer to a serving dish. Drizzle over some olive oil and season.
2 Stir the garlic into the beans and season. Add 4 tbsp olive oil and then vinegar to taste.
3 Add the parsley, capers and olives to the beans and spoon the mixture around the radicchio. Finally, scatter over the parmesan.
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5. Asian beef salad
Serves 8
This is a dish for a dinner party and, although fillet is expensive, you need surprisingly little of it, so this is not as extravagant as it sounds.
500g fillet of beef
Olive oil
2 carrots, peeled
6 spring onions
Small bunch of mint leaves
Handful of coriander
100g salted peanuts
2 tbsp sesame seeds
4 limes, to serve
4 large handfuls mixed salad leaves
3 large handfuls beansprouts
Salt and pepper
For the dressing
5cm piece fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
4 tbsp sesame oil
Juice and zest of 3 limes
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
3 tsp soft brown sugar
1 Heat a griddle pan until very hot, rub the beef with olive oil and sear it on all sides. It is meant to be very rare, so I cook it for about 2-3 minutes on each side. When the beef is cold, slice it as thinly as possible.
2 Cut the carrots into matchsticks, finely slice the spring onions, tear up the mint leaves and roughly chop the coriander and peanuts. Toast the sesame seeds. Cut the limes into quarters.
3 Mix the dressing ingredients together.
4 Mix the salad leaves, beansprouts, carrots, spring onions and herbs and most of the peanuts, season and pile up in the centre of a large dish. Arrange the slices of beef around the edges and drizzle over the dressing. Sprinkle over the sesame seeds and the rest of the peanuts. Serve with lime wedges.
6. Avocado and bacon vinaigrette
Serves 6
Year after year, our boys and their friends would ask for this. Nowadays, the recipe feels somewhat dated, but it’s still good, hearty food in a rather reassuring way.
6 rashers smoked streaky bacon
3 tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
75ml olive oil
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
Plenty of salt and pepper
3 ripe avocados
Bread, to serve
Chop up the bacon and fry until crispy. Add the tomatoes, vinegar and olive oil to the pan, stir in the mustard and bubble for 1 minute. Season generously. Peel and halve the avocados and put a half on each plate. Pour over the bubbling dressing and serve immediately with bread to mop up the juices.
7. Broad bean and pea salad
Serves 6
Whether fresh or frozen, always peel off the broad beans’ coats. Cover them in boiling water for a few minutes and they will come off easily. The effort is worth it, but if you are short of time, use soya beans.
250g fresh or frozen broad beans, skins removed
150g frozen peas
Handful of mint leaves
Zest of 2 lemons
1 garlic clove, crushed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
250g good mozzarella or burrata
6 slices Parma ham (the cheapest) or pancetta
50g shelled pistachios, toasted and chopped
1 Mix the beans and peas together. If frozen, cook for a few minutes.
2 Pat them dry and mix with the mint and lemon zest, garlic, some olive oil and seasoning. Arrange on a plate with the torn mozzarella or burrata.
3 Cook the Parma ham in a hot oven until it is very crispy, then crumble it and scatter it and the pistachios over the top of the salad.
And 14 more superfast salad ideas...
8. Squash salad
Peel the squash and cut it into even-sized chunks. Drizzle with oil and roast at 200C/Gas 6 until tender and beginning to char at the edges. Then toss the roasted squash with watercress, crumbled feta, toasted walnuts and a walnut and lemon dressing. Scatter pomegranate seeds over the top.
9. Watermelon salad
Cut the flesh of the watermelon into thin slices, finely slice a chilli and scatter it over the top of the watermelon. Add crumbled feta and a small handful of torn mint leaves. Drizzle over a little olive oil.
10. Carrot salad
Grate a bunch of carrots. Stir in a large clove of crushed garlic and a splash of good strong olive oil. Decorate with capers.
11. Courgette and basil salad
Slice the courgettes thickly lengthways and toss in oil. Cook them on a ridged griddle pan until they have dark stripes on each side. Then layer the courgette slices with spoonfuls of ricotta, lemon zest and basil. Decorate with shavings of pecorino.
12. Chickpea salad
Open a tin of chickpeas and make a strong mustardy vinaigrette, to which you add a large handful of chopped parsley.
13. Bacon and walnut salad
All you need for this is some chicory to which you add fried croutons, crispy lardons and toasted walnuts. The vinaigrette needs to be sharp and I make it with cheap olive oil and red wine vinegar.
14. Fennel salad
Slice some fennel as finely as you can (one good-sized bulb will do for 3 people). Put it in a dish with a good splash of olive oil and a lot of lemon juice and parmesan shavings.
15. French bean and new potatoes
Halve the potatoes and cook both vegetables until just tender. While they are still warm, toss in homemade pesto (shop-bought pesto will not do for this). To make pesto, whizz up a bunch of basil, stalks and all, a clove of garlic, a handful of pine nuts, about 100g parmesan and enough olive oil to make a sauce rather than a paste. Season generously. As an alternative you could substitute coriander or parsley and walnuts.
16. Mushroom salad
You need good, firm mushrooms. Slice them very thinly and add a surprising amount of strong olive oil and lemon juice. The mushrooms soak up the juices in an extraordinary way, so use more than you think. Finely slice a red chilli, chop some parsley and add these to the mixture. Finally, decorate with shavings of parmesan.
17. Feta and salami salad
A good way of using up bits of salami. Mix whatever you have with chopped tomatoes and crumbled feta. Serve on a bed of shredded lettuce. Dress with a sharp vinaigrette.
18. Potato salad
Cut the potatoes (salad potatoes would be my choice) into chunks and cook. Drain and immediately stir in some crème fraîche and lots of seasoning. Decorate with chives.
19. Melon and rocket salad
Cut the melon (any kind will do) into chunks and toss it with lots of rocket in a light vinaigrette dressing.
20. Mozzarella and melon salad
For 1 cantaloupe melon cut into chunks, you will need 6 slices of parmesan and 1 ball of good-quality mozzarella torn into bite-sized bits as well as a handful of rocket. Toss in a dressing of 2 tbsp lemon juice and 4 tbsp olive oil.
21. Aubergine salad
Cut an aubergine or two lengthways into thick slices and brush each side with olive oil. Season with salt, pepper, garlic and thyme and cook at 220C/Gas 7 for 20 minutes, until golden. Arrange on a dish and scatter over some crumbled feta, toasted pine nuts and chopped mint leaves.
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Extracted from Recipes from Le Rouzet: An English Cook in France by Cathy Gayner (£19.99 including p&p). The full cover price will be donated to Age Unlimited. Available from cathygayner.com
